Africa|Convictions in Morocco Based on Coerced Confessions, Rights Group Says

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Convictions in Morocco Based on Coerced Confessions, Rights Group Says

By Aida Alami

June 21, 2013

CASABLANCA, Morocco — Human Rights Watch on Friday accused Moroccan courts of convicting defendants based on confessions they say were obtained through torture and coercion.

In a 100-page report titled “ 'Just Sign Here’: Unfair Trials Based on Confessions to the Police in Morocco,” the organization said it had examined five trials of 77 people, including pro-democracy demonstrators, activists in Western Sahara and terrorism suspects, from 2009 to the present.

“Once the Moroccan police have your statement in hand, you are not at the start of an evenhanded process to reach the truth,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement accompanying the report. “You are on an express train to a guilty verdict.”

In 2011, in response to street protests demanding more democracy and accountability, King Mohammed VI pledged reforms and a free and fair justice system. That same year, judges formed an association to seek independence from the executive branch and to protest judicial corruption. The king appointed a commission last year to review requests for reforms.

“The justice system is part of the security apparatus instead of being independent,” Eric Goldstein, a deputy director of Human Rights Watch, said in a phone interview. “The court becomes central to repressing opponents to the regime who have gone too far.”

Neither Justice Minister Mustapha Ramid nor a government spokesman could be reached for comment on the report.

The report, which looked at high-profile political cases, said judges tended to ignore defendants’ claims that they were coerced to confess, as well as witness testimony and other evidence, like DNA tests. That encourages the police to use torture and force to obtain statements, the report said.

It tells the story of a champion Moroccan boxer, Zakaria Moumni, who was arrested in 2010 after criticizing the monarchy. He told Human Rights Watch investigators that the police blindfolded him, beat him severely and applied electric shocks during three days of detention. They then removed his blindfold and presented a statement to him.

“They put documents in front of me, but they were covering the top part of the page,” the report quotes him as saying. “I said I wanted to read what I was signing. They said, ‘Just sign here, you’ll get your stuff back and be free to go.’ When I insisted on reading it, they put the blindfold back on, stepped on my feet, and threatened to send me back to where I had come from.”

“At that point, I signed many things without knowing what they were.”

Defendants also told Human Rights Watch that despite the fact that the law allows them to see their lawyer upon arrest, in most cases they were not allowed to see a lawyer until the “confession” was already signed.

“The justice minister evoked the idea of filming the interrogations and sensitizing judges on the issue,” Mr. Goldstein said. “If the lawyers were allowed in during the interview, it would give more credibility to the process.”